


hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me

by ferda



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2016 entry draft, M/M, i straight up dont know how to tag this, yeehaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 09:36:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19315498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferda/pseuds/ferda
Summary: it's just a door frame, matt tells himself. just the idea of a boundary. just empty space between them, just an inch or so. it's a hell of a lot less distance than what separated them than when matt closed his eyes in ontario and thought about what auston was doing all the way across the planet in switzerland. thought about this--this thing looming over them, a standing question gone unanswered for months and then a year and then more than that.





	hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in maybe an hour drunk as shit off terrible moscato listening to dream a little dream of me by the mamas and the papas on repeat, i hope i got the vibe right but if not just pretend i did anyway. esketit

matthew doesn't even think about walking the 37 feet from his room to auston's until he's already knocked on his door.

it opens after a moment; not a long one, but a moment, all the same. if matt was—drunk, really drunk and equally careless, or wistful enough, maybe, to read anything into it, he can imagine it as a purposefully long expanse of time. as long as he'd take to open up his own hotel room door if he was waiting for a knock, but didn't want anyone to think that.

auston opens the door, anyway, which is all that matters. matt doesn't dare let himself think about why. there are lots of things he refuses to let himself indulge in. he adds this to the list of them.

auston's in some ratty t-shirt, tight and loose in all the wrong places, stretched over his shoulders, hitting his hip bones awkwardly. the sweatpants he has on sling right beneath the hem of it. there's probably a slice of skin, tanned and familiar, that his clothes don't cover, but matt doesn't let himself think about it. he doesn't look. not tonight, at least.

 _that shirt was probably red at some point_ , matt thinks to himself in a moment of bizarre—clarity? panic maybe? something else? he isn't sure.

"yeah, chuck?" auston asks, after they stare at each other from opposite sides of the door frame. it's just a door frame, matt tells himself. just the idea of a boundary. just empty space between them, just an inch or so. it's a hell of a lot less distance than what separated them than when matt closed his eyes in ontario and thought about what auston was doing all the way across the planet in switzerland. thought about this—this thing looming over them, a standing question gone unanswered for months and then a year and then more than that.

"chuck?" auston prompts again, drawing his brows down ever-so-slightly, knitting them maybe hairsbreadth closer over his eyes. his frown forces his lips out, just so. matt stares at them stares at them stares at them—

matt presses his mouth to auston's, lets an index finger come up and curl under his chin. it's easy for both of them, to slip back into routine.

he breaks for air, after seconds or hours or maybe even lifetimes. he looks auston square in the eye, contemplates the dark fondness in them, and wonders how either of them got here, to this shitty little hotel in the middle of shitty buffalo, new york, together again for too short a time just to be pulled apart for much, much longer.

"tomorrow's the day," matt says, trying for light. he falls short; they both hear it.

auston nods his agreement. "tomorrow's the day."

"you ready for it?"

"i kind of have to be, don't i?"

matt breathes a laugh out through his nose. doesn't say anything in response. auston's right, anyway.

auston shuffles his feet, moves back and forth and back again until he's right where he was a moment before, on the other side of the door frame. he inhales. matt imagines the motion lifts his shirt hem up just that little bit further, but he still hasn't looked.

"matt," auston starts. "it's late. we both get drafted—later. did you need something?"

auston's eyeing him warily, as though matt is some sleek, feral creature, bright eyed and curly haired and untamable. matt takes a deep breath, steels himself to say what he came here to. he thinks that maybe being some sharp-toothed beast wouldn't be so bad, compared to this sad little thing, petulant and uncertain.

 _and lovesick_ , his mind offers up, and nothing else helpful besides that.

what did he come here to say? why isn't he saying it?

auston stares at him for a second, two, three, before sighing and moving back to close the door.

matt sticks his foot between the door and its frame, moves it back open. it comes back to him, this thing he needed to say.

"i love you," he says. "i think it started, maybe, when you scored that goal against michigan last season, off of my pass, or maybe when you broke your leg and promised you'd break the scoring record when you were still in the hospital and did it anyway, or maybe when you kissed me, finally, when this whole thing all started, or maybe it was at camp, i don't know, but i love you. and i'm not going to stop, i don't think. i didn't in ontario. i don't think i'm gonna stop when you go to toronto and i end up--where i end up. i thought you might want to hear it, after everything. and i knew i needed to say it."

auston stares at him.

for once, for the first time, matt can't read his face, and doesn't know how to feel about it.

auston _laughs_ , ducks his head down and pulls matt into the warm, solid line of his body. he presses his smile into the crook of matt's neck, his nose into the spot under matt's ear. "i love you too, you doorknob," auston's saying into the curve of matt's shoulder, "i thought you knew that."

 _of course i didn't_ , matt thinks, doesn't say out loud. "you—we never—you—" matt flounders again, baseless and unsure, even after everything. "—you went off to switzerland. you never said anything." 

auston's mouth curves up, the slope of it warm and familiar. "would it be terrible of me if i said it now?" 

it's matt's turn to laugh, after a beat, and then he pulls auston forward, out of his room, past the door frame. the movement triggers the sensors in the corridor.

when matt presses their mouths together, soft and sure, the kiss is brighter than the lights; the ones they stand under then, and the ones they'll stand beneath later.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this bitch on my phone so im sorry that it isnt capitalized properly but we all die anyway so who really cares


End file.
